U.S. Senator Ken Salazar

Member of the Agriculture, Energy and Veterans Affairs Committees

 

2300 15th Street, Suite 450 Denver, CO 80202 | 702 Hart Senate Building, Washington, D.C. 20510

 

 

For Immediate Release

December 22, 2005

CONTACT:    Cody Wertz – Press Secretary

                        202-228-3630

Jen Clanahan – Deputy Press Secretary

                        303-455-7600


 Salazar’s Rocky Flats Provisions Included in DoD Bill Passed in Final Hours of Session
Authorization to Spend $10M to Complete Rocky Flats Transition Into National Wildlife Refuge Now Heads to President’s Desk

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons site’s transition to a National Wildlife Refuge awaits only a signature from the President after the Senate passed the FY06 Defense Authorization Bill (S. 1042) last night.

Contained within the DoD Authorization bill was an amendment co-sponsored by United States Senator Ken Salazar to authorize DoD to spend $10 million to purchase mineral rights on the site of the future Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge to ensure these lands will continue to be a natural sanctuary for wildlife.

Senators Allard and Salazar also co-sponsored an amendment to the Energy and Water Appropriations bill which was signed by the President earlier this year appropriating $10 million to purchase the mineral rights associated with the Rocky Flats site.

“The securing of these mineral rights is the last hurdle to transforming Rocky Flats into a national Wildlife Refuge, a crown-jewel of nature for Colorado’s Front Range communities and wildlife,” said Senator Salazar. “I am proud to have worked on these two provisions essential to the transformation of Rocky Flats and look forward to the President signing them into law.”

Senator Salazar has worked for many years to clean-up the pollution at Rocky Flats and to bring to reality a wildlife refuge that will serve the people and the natural wildlife of Colorado forever. Senator Salazar served as a trustee of Colorado’s natural resources when he was Colorado’s Attorney General and when he was the Executive Director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources. He has worked very hard to combine the newly cleaned open space at Rocky Flats — the wildlife refuge — with the open space of the communities that surround it. This entire area will truly become one of Colorado’s crown jewels — right in the midst of the heavily populated Front Range.

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